CFA dispute: Lucinda Nolan another casualty of Daniel Andrew’s determination to hand CFA to UFU

LUCINDA Nolan is another casualty of Daniel Andrews’s determination that the CFA be handed over to the control of the United Firefighters Union, writes James Campbell.

SO LUCINDA Nolan is another casualty of Daniel Andrews’s determination that the CFA be handed over to the control of the United Firefighters Union.

She joins a list of casualties that includes the entire CFA board and the former minister for emergency services, Jane Garrett.

To give Garrett’s successor James Merlino credit, he acknowledged Nolan’s service to emergency management in the state and wished her well in her future endeavours. A week ago, when Dan accepted Garrett’s resignation, there was no thank you.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews holds a press conference after Jane Garrett resigned. Picture: Alex Coppel.

Lucinda Nolan. Picture: Lawrence Pinder

Indeed, at his press conference afterwards, the only time he uttered her name was to say she had “refused to support the unanimous decision made by Cabinet”.

When women do as Dan wants they are “outstanding”.

When they don’t he won’t even say their names.

It would be interesting to know how many people Merlino — or whoever was tasked with the job — asked to be on his new board before he found five people willing to say yes. By all accounts this mob weren’t the first choices, but I think you’d probably worked that out already.

As the press conference began announcing the new names, the old names had still not been officially informed they had been sacked. They received an email half an hour into Merlino’s press conference telling them they were gone.

It’s customary to have an old dog put down before you get a puppy but that’s not how we do things here in Dan’s Victoria.